Valuation Trubunal for Council Tax Band-Let's Do This!

[LaurasOtherHalf]

Not sure if this is in the correct forum but I figured it might be of most interest in here but here we go....

First of all, I'm not sure if this is a thread that is going to be looking for advice or giving it but let's see how it pans out, I've already taken the first couple of steps as I'll detail below.

So we purchased our new house last year, quite a step up for us but a "forever house" so to speak so although cost was a consideration, it was more a case of "make it work" than anything else. It's a substantial (for us) property on one of probably only 3 landmark addresses in our area, you know the kind, it gets a reaction when you mention it. This is not why we bought it obviously but I'm just trying to paint a picture.

Big houses cost big money, my old man told me that but let's just say I needed a sit down when the council tax bill came in, if I'm honest I didn't look it up before I bought it for the simple reason that I didn't want it to put us off. The result;

Band G

Mentioning this to someone who has recently moved I was intrigued when they told me they had appealed theirs at a tribunal and had won under slightly dubious conditions. Long story short being they appealed and we're going to trivial before the valuations office rand up the day (or possibly two) before to cancel the hearing and award them their desired band.

I say dubious, as (and they're not tinfoil hatters) they were convinced the tribunal didn't want to lose the hearing which would result in the case being publicised locally and encourage others to try the same. I'm not sure about all that but hey ho.

So, day off earlier this year I rang them up to request a review. At this point I had done virtually no work on it whatsoever save googling council tax bands and valuation office and picking up the phone. I had a chat with a very nice lady who explained I could fill out an online form and state my case which I duly did, my points being;

All immediate neighbours have vastly bigger properties and land but are the same band (1 acre + gardens, 7+ bedrooms, 4 living rooms etc)
Our house was built 2002 so no historic sale prices back to 1990
Ambiguity on how many bedrooms ours has (the 5th bedroom is in the basement, so it's window can't be a fire escape and shouldn't be classed as such for sale).

One point that could go either way, people tend to buy the plots on our road (say a 1.5 acre site), build a huge family pile and stay on it forever. Thus, finding any sale prices is extremely tricky, especially as I think the earliest was built in 1991.

Low and behold, a week or so later the very nice lady at the valuations office rang back and said after investigating, although it was a close thing she was reclassing our house as F. Happy-ish days

She did however say if I wanted to dispute this I could take them to a tribunal. So that's what I've done I now have my date and must proceed to gather evidence that will help my case. During lunch today I've done a bit of that so I'll update the thread as I go, if this is of any help for folks then fair play. If others have been through the same and have any advice to offer then get posting.

[worsy]

LaurasOtherHalf said:

Not sure if this is in the correct forum but I figured it might be of most interest in here but here we go....

First of all, I'm not sure if this is a thread that is going to be looking for advice or giving it but let's see how it pans out, I've already taken the first couple of steps as I'll detail below.

So we purchased our new house last year, quite a step up for us but a "forever house" so to speak so although cost was a consideration, it was more a case of "make it work" than anything else. It's a substantial (for us) property on one of probably only 3 landmark addresses in our area, you know the kind, it gets a reaction when you mention it. This is not why we bought it obviously but I'm just trying to paint a picture.

Big houses cost big money, my old man told me that but let's just say I needed a sit down when the council tax bill came in, if I'm honest I didn't look it up before I bought it for the simple reason that I didn't want it to put us off. The result;

Band G

Mentioning this to someone who has recently moved I was intrigued when they told me they had appealed theirs at a tribunal and had won under slightly dubious conditions. Long story short being they appealed and we're going to trivial before the valuations office rand up the day (or possibly two) before to cancel the hearing and award them their desired band.

I say dubious, as (and they're not tinfoil hatters) they were convinced the tribunal didn't want to lose the hearing which would result in the case being publicised locally and encourage others to try the same. I'm not sure about all that but hey ho.

So, day off earlier this year I rang them up to request a review. At this point I had done virtually no work on it whatsoever save googling council tax bands and valuation office and picking up the phone. I had a chat with a very nice lady who explained I could fill out an online form and state my case which I duly did, my points being;

All immediate neighbours have vastly bigger properties and land but are the same band (1 acre + gardens, 7+ bedrooms, 4 living rooms etc)
Our house was built 2002 so no historic sale prices back to 1990
Ambiguity on how many bedrooms ours has (the 5th bedroom is in the basement, so it's window can't be a fire escape and shouldn't be classed as such for sale).

One point that could go either way, people tend to buy the plots on our road (say a 1.5 acre site), build a huge family pile and stay on it forever. Thus, finding any sale prices is extremely tricky, especially as I think the earliest was built in 1991.

Low and behold, a week or so later the very nice lady at the valuations office rang back and said after investigating, although it was a close thing she was reclassing our house as F. Happy-ish days

She did however say if I wanted to dispute this I could take them to a tribunal. So that's what I've done I now have my date and must proceed to gather evidence that will help my case. During lunch today I've done a bit of that so I'll update the thread as I go, if this is of any help for folks then fair play. If others have been through the same and have any advice to offer then get posting.

Band E?....No chance lol. You might even get G at the tribunal.

[LaurasOtherHalf]

Well, on the basis off you don't ask, you don't get. I've taken the incredibly astute decision to go for (drumroll)......

Band D

[FlossyThePig]

We had our band reduced from G to F, so it can be done.

Banding is based on what the house would have been valued at in 1991. Later built properties are valued as if they were there in 1991 if that makes sense.

A lot of valuations were made using the "drive by" method, assessing a number of properties in a group, as the numbers meant inspections couldn't be made on individual houses. Our house is wide but not deep so looks much larger than it is, hence the higher banding.

[LaurasOtherHalf]

FlossyThePig said:

We had our band reduced from G to F, so it can be done.

Banding is based on what the house would have been valued at in 1991. Later built properties are valued as if they were there in 1991 if that makes sense.

A lot of valuations were made using the "drive by" method, assessing a number of properties in a group, as the numbers meant inspections couldn't be made on individual houses. Our house is wide but not deep so looks much larger than it is, hence the higher banding.

For clarification the valuation office has already reduced our band down to F, the purpose of the tribunal is to try to get it reduced further

Regarding the above italicised section, that's great info (thanks) as our house is the same, it's essentially on a long wide strip of land that used to be another house's horse paddock, which obviously looks incredibly imposing from the curb but probably isn't as large as people expect as the woodland to our rear belongs to someone else.

[TA14]

worsy said:

Band E?....No chance lol. You might even get G at the tribunal.

I'd say that this was slightly pessimistic: if your house value is 1/3 that of those at the top of band G it would just creep into band E so there is perhaps a 1% chance. Other than that sounds like F is say 29% likely and G is 70% hence why she suggested the tibunal. You have a four/five bed house which by your own admission looks like other band G properties. Asking for band D will show that you are clueless and anything you say can be safely ignored

[LaurasOtherHalf]

And the other 4/5 bedroom houses within my postcode that are band D & E?

[LaurasOtherHalf]

TA14 said:

I'd say that this was slightly pessimistic: if your house value is 1/3 that of those at the top of band G it would just creep into band E so there is perhaps a 1% chance. Other than that sounds like F is say 29% likely and G is 70% hence why she suggested the tibunal. You have a four/five bed house which by your own admission looks like other band G properties. Asking for band D will show that you are clueless and anything you say can be safely ignored

Just to clarify, can I ask you the following questions?

1/ what are you basing these percentages on?
2/ which part of my statement suggests my house looks like all the other band g houses?
2/ what difference would it make if it did?
4/ you sound like you know what you're on about, care to expand on if you do?

BTW, none of the above questions are calling into question your expertise (I'm aware how enquiries on this forum can unintentionally look aggressive and dismissive, I don't mean that by questioning you at all!) but you sound like you have some great experience and might be able to help!

I still have the option of cutting my losses at any point and accepting my band F reclassification! Also, the lady at the valuations office did not suggest the tribunal as much as offered it if I wasn't happy with her findings.

[Sheepshanks]

LaurasOtherHalf said:

All immediate neighbours have vastly bigger properties and land but are the same band (1 acre + gardens, 7+ bedrooms, 4 living rooms etc)

You'll be popular when they get put up to H.

[LaurasOtherHalf]

Sheepshanks said:

LaurasOtherHalf said:

All immediate neighbours have vastly bigger properties and land but are the same band (1 acre + gardens, 7+ bedrooms, 4 living rooms etc)

You'll be popular when they get put up to H.

Yeah I've heard the same thing but does anyone have any experience of this happening? Google it and you seem to get very little evidence of it happening (save some block of flats).

Plus to be fair, band H where we live is pretty much exclusive to country estates!

[LaurasOtherHalf]

so a little update to the thread as today i attended a tribunal for the first time in my life

following the previous posts not a huge amount has happened if i'm honest, a couple of letters have come in from the VOA with regards to the hearing and then the VOA officer got in touch to say she wanted to come and inspect our property.

fair enough, i was offered three dates of which none were sadly suitable but in the interests of fair play i managed to alter some work commitments to suit.

last week, the officer came round for a look. the only plans they had were presumably different to what was eventually built, the footprint was apparently the same but some rooms were subtly different with one en suite entirely missing in real life. they also had a look through the evidence we had and proclaimed they would be moving to postpone the hearing.

now, i was a little annoyed about this as we had complied with everything they had asked and the fact that we had an (their words) huge amount of evidence to support our claim seemed to be a good thing in our eyes.

the evidence? i've done nothing but trawl right move looking for any 4-5 bedroom houses in our postcode. see one for sale, look up it's council tax band and if it's E or less, print off the details and add it to the pile.

i've so far come up with (and was ready to present today) 17 properties. i also have a further 9 that i can add to that list now that we have some more time before the next hearing.

i was told people normally turn up with details of 2 or 3.

[worsy]

LaurasOtherHalf said:

so a little update to the thread as today i attended a tribunal for the first time in my life

following the previous posts not a huge amount has happened if i'm honest, a couple of letters have come in from the VOA with regards to the hearing and then the VOA officer got in touch to say she wanted to come and inspect our property.

fair enough, i was offered three dates of which none were sadly suitable but in the interests of fair play i managed to alter some work commitments to suit.

last week, the officer came round for a look. the only plans they had were presumably different to what was eventually built, the footprint was apparently the same but some rooms were subtly different with one en suite entirely missing in real life. they also had a look through the evidence we had and proclaimed they would be moving to postpone the hearing.

now, i was a little annoyed about this as we had complied with everything they had asked and the fact that we had an (their words) huge amount of evidence to support our claim seemed to be a good thing in our eyes.

the evidence? i've done nothing but trawl right move looking for any 4-5 bedroom houses in our postcode. see one for sale, look up it's council tax band and if it's E or less, print off the details and add it to the pile.

i've so far come up with (and was ready to present today) 17 properties. i also have a further 9 that i can add to that list now that we have some more time before the next hearing.

i was told people normally turn up with details of 2 or 3.

Normally a postcode only covers a handful of properties. At 17, especially that some have 1 acre gardens it sounds like a large area. Or are you using a 5 digit post code?

If the VOA wanted to argue, would there be an equal number of higher band properties they could use as evidence? You might find that showing some similar banding properties which have a marked difference to yours will also help.

[LaurasOtherHalf]

good questions, i'm using the same first three digits of the postcode, i.e. first two letters and number. we are rural so this does encompass quite a large area however most of the small villages and hamlets that do come under this postcode are relatively similar.

as for examples of recently sold examples i've found this slightly more difficult as if the house details aren't live on the search any more, how do we know about them?

however, i have got a couple of houses that are showing as sold on right move that are banded the same F as us, in our area that are both larger properties and have more land available.

we also have arial photos (from google maps) and OS maps that show the property two plots up from ours which they say is comparable. a rough guess would be the plot is around 1.5 time larger.

[worsy]

LaurasOtherHalf said:

good questions, i'm using the same first three digits of the postcode, i.e. first two letters and number. we are rural so this does encompass quite a large area however most of the small villages and hamlets that do come under this postcode are relatively similar.

as for examples of recently sold examples i've found this slightly more difficult as if the house details aren't live on the search any more, how do we know about them?

however, i have got a couple of houses that are showing as sold on right move that are banded the same F as us, in our area that are both larger properties and have more land available.

we also have arial photos (from google maps) and OS maps that show the property two plots up from ours which they say is comparable. a rough guess would be the plot is around 1.5 time larger.

Hmmm in my town, the first half of the postcode covers the whole town, council houses, country estates the works. I'm pretty rural too. You'd have to convince me that search area wasn't far too large.

Where I grew up the first half of the postcode is nearly the whole county. Narrowing it locally there are three large villages and 2 hamlets, for which one village is much more sought after (expensive) than the other two. I don't think you can reasonably compare such a large area.

[LaurasOtherHalf]

worsy said:

Hmmm in my town, the first half of the postcode covers the whole town, council houses, country estates the works. I'm pretty rural too. You'd have to convince me that search area wasn't far too large.

Where I grew up the first half of the postcode is nearly the whole county. Narrowing it locally there are three large villages and 2 hamlets, for which one village is much more sought after (expensive) than the other two. I don't think you can reasonably compare such a large area.

there's a good chance you could be right however my argument is that as there is such a wide varying style and size of house where we are we simply have to look further afield to find anything comparable.

it may boil down to my huge amount of properties getting whittled down to 5 or so and i'm cool with that, one is actually on the same road (though it changes name as it goes over the brow of the hill), of the same type of build and with the same number of bedrooms and less than half a mile away according to google. It's banded E.

around 75% of the others are within 6 miles which although not on the doorstep, are comparable i think or at least i think i can argue they should be considered.

[worsy]

LaurasOtherHalf said:

worsy said:

Hmmm in my town, the first half of the postcode covers the whole town, council houses, country estates the works. I'm pretty rural too. You'd have to convince me that search area wasn't far too large.

Where I grew up the first half of the postcode is nearly the whole county. Narrowing it locally there are three large villages and 2 hamlets, for which one village is much more sought after (expensive) than the other two. I don't think you can reasonably compare such a large area.

there's a good chance you could be right however my argument is that as there is such a wide varying style and size of house where we are we simply have to look further afield to find anything comparable.

it may boil down to my huge amount of properties getting whittled down to 5 or so and i'm cool with that, one is actually on the same road (though it changes name as it goes over the brow of the hill), of the same type of build and with the same number of bedrooms and less than half a mile away according to google. It's banded E.

around 75% of the others are within 6 miles which although not on the doorstep, are comparable i think or at least i think i can argue they should be considered.

According to google? Are you using the VOA site?

[LaurasOtherHalf]

apologies i didn't make that clear, the distance to the house from ours is 0.4 miles according to google maps. yes, all evidence we have collected is verified on the VOA website and backed up with any historic prices from the land registry website.

[worsy]

So house which is exactly same but 0.4 miles away is Band E? Does it have similar sized plot?

Sounds like a Band E valuation at a minimum could be justified. Is there anything to suggest this is artificially low?
For example On the VOA website it shows improvement marker and history (reduction in band previously)

[LaurasOtherHalf]

worsy said:

So house which is exactly same but 0.4 miles away is Band E? Does it have similar sized plot?

Sounds like a Band E valuation at a minimum could be justified. Is there anything to suggest this is artificially low?
For example On the VOA website it shows improvement marker and history (reduction in band previously)

precisely. same house style and modern construction, similar size (a little smaller), similar plot size (i'd guess slightly smaller)

house the VOA are using as comparison is again similar style and construction, similar size (slightly larger) but much larger plot (1.5 acres compared to our 0.5-0.75 acres).

[worsy]

LaurasOtherHalf said:

worsy said:

So house which is exactly same but 0.4 miles away is Band E? Does it have similar sized plot?

Sounds like a Band E valuation at a minimum could be justified. Is there anything to suggest this is artificially low?
For example On the VOA website it shows improvement marker and history (reduction in band previously)

precisely. same house style and modern construction, similar size (a little smaller), similar plot size (i'd guess slightly smaller)

house the VOA are using as comparison is again similar style and construction, similar size (slightly larger) but much larger plot (1.5 acres compared to our 0.5-0.75 acres).

I'd guess their argument is that the difference in garden size is irrelevant, this one is band F right? Where they put you?
Might the VOA argue that your example is under banded? Potentially they have the authority to reband your neighbour